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"Anti-Extremism Bill may target Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, lobby group warns"
christiantoday.com
Christians who oppose gay marriage could be targeted with "false accusations" of extremism under an upcoming bill, a lobby group has warned.
David Cameron will introduce measures to ban organisations, silence individuals and close down groups that "promote hatred" in legislation to be announced later this month. The bill will be the central focus of the Queen's Speech on May 18, according to The Times.
However Simon Calvert, deputy director of public affairs at The Christian Institute, told Christian Today the new powers could be used to target Christians
"The government talks about tackling extremism and preventing people promoting hatred," said Calvert.
"If those words had their ordinary meaning Christians would have nothing to worry about but unfortunately they don't. People routinely use the word 'extremist' to label Christians and they often falsely accuse them of hatred.
"If you put those two words into a statute how can you be sure they won't be interpreted in that same overly broad way to capture innocent Christians simply going about the business of preaching the gospel and declaring the council of God?"
A home office source, quoted in The Times, admitted: "Getting agreement about the thresholds for what constitutes extremism and what needs to be protected as free speech is not going to be easy or straightforward."
For Calvert, the problem in the government's approach is its "overemphasis on what it calls non-violent extremism".
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